World best and course record holders Marcel Hug and Manuela
Schar return to defend titles at the 122nd Boston Marathon on Patriots' Day
BOSTON – Eight Boston Marathon champions, including reigning
winners Marcel Hug and Manuela Schar of Switzerland, will compete in the push
rim wheelchair division of the 122nd Boston Marathon on Monday, April 16. More
than 50 athletes will be part of the wheelchair division, which starts in
Hopkinton before the open race featuring 30,000 runners.
A prize purse of $84,500 – provided by principal sponsor
John Hancock – will be shared among the top ten men and women push rim
wheelchair finishers. The men’s and women’s winner will each receive $20,000.
Coming off triumphant wins a year ago, Hug and Schar will
look to continue their string of success on the roads leading to Boylston Street.
Hug, the three-time defending champion, aims to become the third men’s
wheelchair competitor to earn a four-peat in Boston Marathon history, joining
Ernst van Dyk (who has accomplished the feat twice) and Swiss legend Franz
Nietlispach. Schar will look to join Edith Hunkeler as the only Swiss woman to
win a pair of Boston titles. Jean Driscoll has the record for most Boston
Marathon Women’s Wheelchair titles at eight.
“With eight Boston Marathon champions returning, this year’s
race for the push rim wheelchair titles will be fierce,” said Tom Grilk, CEO of
the B.A.A. “Coming off a year where two world bests were set in Boston, and the
Abbott World Marathon Majors Series X champions were crowned here, the
anticipation is high for dramatic races.”
In 2017, both Hug and Schar set new course records and world
bests on the Boston course. Hug won a sprint to the line over ten-time Boston
Marathon champion van Dyk, where both crossed the stripe in 1:18:04. Van Dyk
will also return to Boston with hopes of reclaiming the top spot for the first
time since 2014. He is the most decorated champion in event history.
Schar shaved more than five minutes from the previous course
record of 1:34:06, covering the course in 1:28:17 a year ago. After finishing
second in 2016, Schar earned her first Boston victory and became the first
woman to ever dip under 1:30:00 in the wheelchair marathon. Hug and Schar also
won the TCS New York City Marathon last fall.
Schar won’t have an easy run to the finish, though, as
four-time champion Tatyana McFadden returns once again after placing fourth
last year. After sweeping the Abbott World Marathon Majors from 2013 to 2016,
McFadden returns after timing her fastest Boston in 2017 (1:35:05). She’s known
to push the pace especially on the uphills late in the course.
Other champions returning to Boston include Japan’s Masazumi
Soejima (2007, 2011) and Hiroyuki Yamamoto (2013); Canada’s Joshua Cassidy
(2012); and Arizona’s Shirley Reilly (2012). Yamamoto placed third in the men’s
division last year, while Cassidy is the former Boston course record holder
with a best of 1:18:25.
Americans Amanda McGrory and Susannah Scaroni will aim to
move up on the podium in 2018 after placing second and third a year ago. Each
is searching for their first Boston title.
Making her Boston Marathon debut is Annika Zeyen of Germany.
A gold and silver medalist at the Paralympic Games in wheelchair basketball for
the German national team, Zeyen has transitioned to wheelchair marathon racing
over the last two years and placed sixth at the 2017 TCS New York City
Marathon.
This year’s Boston Marathon will be the penultimate event in
the Abbott World Marathon Majors Series XI, which ends in London on April 22.
Points scored over a rotating calendar season at the Boston, Virgin Money
London, Tokyo, BMW Berlin, Bank of America Chicago, and TCS New York City
Marathons will determine a male and female champion, each of whom will receive
a $50,000 bonus. Hug and Schar currently lead the series by sizable margins
with 91 and 84 points, respectively.
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